Game Details

When it was announced that Plants vs. Zombies 2 would be a free-to-play game driven by microtransactions, many people were worried that the change would ruin the careful balance Popcap had struck with the first game. Those fears are largely overblown. Plants vs. Zombies 2 generally strikes the right balance between challenge and convenience, charging players only for things they can do for themselves quite readily.

If you played the first Plants vs. Zombies (and if you haven't, why not?), the basic gameplay will be familiar to you here. You still collect little bits of sun energy to buy plants that automatically fire at enemy zombies shambling in from the right side of the screen. Plants vs. Zombies 2 is still the instantly accessible, dumbed-down, yet strangely addictive version of a tower defense game that its predecessor was.

The vast majority of the plants you can use for your defense this time around are instantly familiar from the first game. Of the new ones, there are only a few standouts, like the lightning reeds that can arc electricity at nearby zombies or the pea pods that can be stacked from one to five pea shooters on the same square.

The new zombie types are the real highlight. Whether they're riding bucking broncos, sending out parrots and chickens to attack your plants, playing a rolling piano that makes each new zombie dance into another lane, or rolling destroyable barrels full of even more zombies, each presents a unique new challenge and demands a different response from your plant-based defenses.

Popcap has also added a few new twists to the standard grid design of the levels. In pirate-themed levels, parts of the screen are taken up by water, and zombies can swing in past your defenses on ropes. In Old West-inspired levels, plants can be placed on mine carts and moved across rows manually, expanding their efficiency (but limiting your planting area). Like the first game, there are also occasional mini-game-style levels that change things up by giving you a steady stream of set plants or asking you to fire cannons at flying zombies, Galaga style.

The real key to the game's appeal is that there's no one dominant strategy; there's no single plant or set of plants that can just work in every situation. You have to carefully choose which plants you need for any given situation in order to strike a diverse balance to deal with varied threats. The variety in plant choice also allows for customization based on play style. Will you go for a quick, blitz-style attack with cheap, weak plants, or do you prefer slower, more powerful plants that will dominate in the late game?

Plants vs. Zombies 2 also introduces a number of new power-ups that can give you a large advantage. Defeating special glowing zombies gives you a bag of plant food, which can be fed to a plant to unleash a single, massive attack to deal with tough situations or a huge wave of zombies. There are also several touchscreen-based attacks that let you dispose of zombies with a pinch, a flick, or an electrical swipe—if you're willing to spend in-game coins.

It's here that the dreaded specter of monetization rears its ugly head. If you don't have enough plant food, you can always buy more with real money using a tap of the green plus button. You can earn coins for your touchscreen attacks through regular gameplay too, but if you run out, you can buy more at any time, even in the middle of a fight. These abilities are so powerful that anyone who wants to can easily pay to beat even the most difficult levels using just a few quick taps.

A new map screen includes a lot of side paths to unlock with keys.

The touchscreen attacks are a tad overpowered, but they are limited by your coins.

Plant food makes flowers insanely happy and productive for a short time.

Crazy Dave is as crazy as ever.

Thankfully, the game is tuned well enough that a skilled player never has to spend a single dime. I managed to get through to the end of the game rather easily without spending any money, just by using the plant food and coins the game provided to me. On the first playthrough of most levels, in fact, I found I was rarely tempted to spend coins on those overpowered touch attacks. That's partly because I knew they were a limited resource and partly because using those touch attacks felt a bit like cheating. Limiting myself to what the game provided without spending real money became a point of pride, and it added some extra challenge without making the game impossible at any point.

After you beat each world, Plants vs. Zombies 2 encourages you to replay beaten levels with new, more difficult constraints. Sometimes you aren't allowed to plant on certain squares. Sometimes you can only spend an extremely limited amount of sun or have a small number of plants on the board at once. Sometimes you have to use a mismatched set of plants the game sets for you.

It's these replays that took the game from amusing diversion to real obsession for me. The limitations on otherwise simple levels require you to flex your mind in new ways and come up with unorthodox strategies you would never use in the "real" game. These replays also provide the opportunity to earn the stars and keys that unlock new levels and paths on the map. You can pay real money to unlock these without revisiting old levels, but when the challenges are so interesting, it's hard to even consider paying money to skip them.

I know free-to-play is still a dirty word in a lot of gaming circles, but Plants vs. Zombies 2 shows that it's possible to strike the right balance between monetization and difficulty. By letting skill and perseverance stand in for your optional dollars, Popcap has created a game where you really only have yourself to blame if you find that you need to spend money.

The Good

Same simple yet addictive real-time defense gameplay

Design and animation are as adorable as ever

Interesting new zombies

New challenges on familiar old levels add longevity

Well-balanced monetization system doesn't require you to spend a cent

The Bad

Most of the plants return from the first game, and new plants are often forgettable

Touchscreen attacks feel overpowered and antithetical to the game design

The Ugly

The fact that non-iOS platforms will have to wait to play it

Verdict: Download it for free. What do you have to lose besides hours of your life?

Plants vs. Zombies 2 shows that it's possible to strike the right balance between monetization and difficulty.

This is absolutely not true. One of the things you didn't even mention in the review is the absurd real money price of everything. The best older plants, which are mostly required to get in anywhere in the infinite ladders, cost 3 or 4 USD. A piece. Theres 5 of them. That's absolutely absurd.

And that's just the plants you need! For other upgrades, like one extra plant slot? $4 please. Reclaim more sun on digging up plants? Ching, $4 Start with extra sun? $4.

There's no way to earn your way to any of these. You can get some upgrades through play, but not all of them, and none of the paid for plants can be earned.

The insane prices of every little unit just screams EA greed. Many people would be happy to pay $15 or even $20 for the whole set because it's so good. As it stands $20 doesn't get you even close to half, and you can't just pay for a couple things and earn the rest. It's absurd, it's greedy, and I'll just be using a tool to unlock everything just to spite EA. And I bought PvZ on multiple platforms.

Also you didn't mention there's a very obnoxious interstitial full screen that just begs for money occasionally. TOUCH HERE TO BUY STUFF. PLEASE. The initial tutorial directly leads you into the store and says flat out 'here, buy things'.

I agree with you (so far -- haven't finished yet) that this is one of the rare F2P games that gets monetization right.

I'm slightly surprised that you left out my favorite aspect of that: merchandising.

Right on the starting screen of the game is a button that looks like a green t-shirt with a cartoon face on it. Tap on that and you are sent here: http://www.pvzstore.com/

You can then buy plushies or shirts or whatever. It's sort-of like a tip jar. You can directly reward the developer and get something to show for it without corrupting the gameplay. It's like buying shirts at a rock concert.

I am pretty sure it can only work if the game has real, distinct character to it. Which is good, I think -- games like that deserve higher rewards than games that don't.

Well I have played through all the way to Wild West zone, am only missing 7 stars, and as high as level 16 in the 3 endless games.

I have not purchased anything so far. I do not miss any of the "core" plants. I am happy with the selection provided. I find I rely on the fire pods heavily. The canons are nice against the sarcophagus guys when they also have Indiana Jones zombies with torches.

At this point I want to either see how far i can go without paying or buy extra starting sun and extra plant slot. Probably the latter since I need to also get to the not playing anymore phase.

People whining about the "grind" for stars in each zone: just plow to the end then get started on endless and stars. Endless drops all the keys you need for that zone and more.

234 posts | registered Jan 20, 2011

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

OK, here's the issue I have with their payment model: For the old PvZ, you were paying (IIRC) a maximum of $5 to play it on the iPad, make it $8 if on both platforms. (I realize the PC version was more expensive, but for the purpose of this, compare total prices).

Here, you're looking at, in order to unlock everything, $26 (last number I heard reported). Some of those unlocks include plants that were near and dear in the first PvZ, so it's not like you're paying for random boosts, but instead (somewhat) core mechanics. I would gladly pay EA $5 for a new PvZ, but the economics of this just don't make any sense, from a value comparison standpoint.

I almost 100% disagree with the notion that they did free-to-play right. To move from world 2 to 3, you have to have 30 stars, and if you went directly from 1 to 2 without doing any additional challenges, you will have about 2 stars. That means you have to play 28 more levels to advance to the next world, or pony up. Isn't that almost the same as them telling you grinding for those stars isn't worthwhile gameplay because you can just buy your way through it? Also, the challenges are fun once or twice, but they're repetitive. I saw an awful lot of "don't plant any plants on this moss" or "don't plant more than x number of plants." Finally, they really beat you over the head with notifications that you can buy stuff or like them Facebook or whatever.

It's still Plants vs. Zombies, and it's still fun to play, but the constant nagging is really annoying, and knowing that, as of writing this, I'm 22 stars away from world 3, really makes me not want to play the game. It isn't progression at that point - it's grinding. This game may as well be called "pay to not grind," which I really hate. I'd rather they just designed it more like the first game so you felt like most levels gave you something new or different, and you didn't have to replay levels for the sake of replaying. I'd pay money for that game.

If I'm being honest, I think you're being a little generous. I'm only on Ancient Egypt, and I've come to the first fork that requires me to spend 4 keys to traverse a path on the map; the fact that I have to replay the same level *3* more times just to traverse that path I find pretty frustrating.

That said, the graphics are beautiful, the modification to the zombies are fun, and it very well captures the spirit of the first.

If I'm being honest, I think you're being a little generous. I'm only on Ancient Egypt, and I've come to the first fork that requires me to spend 4 keys to traverse a path on the map; the fact that I have to replay the same level *3* more times just to traverse that path I find pretty frustrating.

That said, the graphics are beautiful, the modification to the zombies are fun, and it very well captures the spirit of the first.

You can get keys from any level... You don't have to replay that level to get more keys.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 shows that it's possible to strike the right balance between monetization and difficulty.

This is absolutely not true. One of the things you didn't even mention in the review is the absurd real money price of everything. The best older plants, which are mostly required to get in anywhere in the infinite ladders, cost 3 or 4 USD. A piece. Theres 5 of them. That's absolutely absurd.

And that's just the plants you need! For other upgrades, like one extra plant slot? $4 please. Reclaim more sun on digging up plants? Ching, $4 Start with extra sun? $4.

There's no way to earn your way to any of these. You can get some upgrades through play, but not all of them, and none of the paid for plants can be earned.

The insane prices of every little unit just screams EA greed. Many people would be happy to pay $15 or even $20 for the whole set because it's so good. As it stands $20 doesn't get you even close to half, and you can't just pay for a couple things and earn the rest. It's absurd, it's greedy, and I'll just be using a tool to unlock everything just to spite EA. And I bought PvZ on multiple platforms.

Also you didn't mention there's a very obnoxious interstitial full screen that just begs for money occasionally. TOUCH HERE TO BUY STUFF. PLEASE. The initial tutorial directly leads you into the store and says flat out 'here, buy things'.

This review is way too kind and missing some key info; there's a bunch of plants (including the core Snowpea) that you HAVE to buy, and you CANNOT unlock by playing. That is NOT free to play done right.

OK, here's the issue I have with their payment model: For the old PvZ, you were paying (IIRC) a maximum of $5 to play it on the iPad...Here, you're looking at, in order to unlock everything, $26 (last number I heard reported). ..., from a value comparison standpoint.

I largely agree with you. I have an android tablet so I'm waiting for the android release, but I would much rather pay $5 upfront than pay to unlock things.

Now, where your argument has a bit of a weakness is that the review makes clear you never have to pay for anything at all.

Personally, I still consider "free-to-play" to be a dirty word as the article mentioned, but this time I will give it a chance.

Now, where your argument has a bit of a weakness is that the review makes clear you never have to pay for anything at all.

That's not really true, though. You don't HAVE to pay for anything to "beat" the game, but if you want to unlock all the plants then you do have to pay. You cannot unlock the paid plants any other way other than coughing up $3+ each.

As soon as I see "free to play", I run screaming in the other direction.

The developer can only make money by frustrating the user, or by locking something away. Transactions are small, so the developer has to do this repeatedly.

So how much does this game cost to buy? With F2P, who knows? They're not publishing "up-front" how many "frustration points" they have inserted into the game, to make money. There's no "buy the real game" purchase, and get the "real" play experience. Since that's not offered, they expect to make more from in-app purchases.

I'm not willing to find the frustration points, or try to play or pay through them. I'd cheerfully pay $5, or $7 for PvZ 2. As it is, I won't even bother to download it. And that's after buying the original on multiple platforms.

As soon as I see "free to play", I run screaming in the other direction.

The developer can only make money by frustrating the user, or by locking something away. Transactions are small, so the developer has to do this repeatedly.

This isn't true, though. Yes, most F2P games opt to be douchey about it but you don't have to be. Look at DotA2. All the pay options are 100% purely cosmetic. No unlocking heroes, no advantages to gameplay of any sort. That's F2P done right IMHO.

Loved the first PvZ so no harm in playing this one for free, but I refuse to pay a cent since EA/Apple made a deal to be exclusive to IOS for x amount of time. Really rather play this on a PC/Xbox, not my iPhone.

As soon as I see "free to play", I run screaming in the other direction.

The developer can only make money by frustrating the user, or by locking something away. Transactions are small, so the developer has to do this repeatedly.

So how much does this game cost to buy? With F2P, who knows? They're not publishing "up-front" how many "frustration points" they have inserted into the game, to make money.

I'm not willing to find the frustration points, or try to play through them. I'd cheerfully pay $5, or $7 for PvZ 2. As it is, I won't even bother to download it. And that's after buying the original on multiple platforms.

This is, IMHO, the fundamental problem with F2P games. In a normal pay-up-front sort of game the developer can plan out a difficulty curve that makes the game fun without being tedious and keeps you interested for the whole thing. With F2P games, the developer is instead forced to add fun destroying roadblocks like grind, overpowered enemies, etc... that encourage you to pay real money to get past. It wrecks the flow of the game, and it's a core feature of the business model.

There are a small number of games that buck this trend, like Team Fortress 2, but they generally have to come from independent developers or ones that have the balls to stand up to the suits and tell them that they won't make the game intentionally bad just to make people pay more.

This is, IMHO, the fundamental problem with F2P games. In a normal pay-up-front sort of game the developer can plan out a difficulty curve that makes the game fun without being tedious and keeps you interested for the whole thing. With F2P games, the developer is instead forced to add fun destroying roadblocks like grind, overpowered enemies, etc... that encourage you to pay real money to get past. It wrecks the flow of the game, and it's a core feature of the business model.

MMOs are going F2P in droves. Not only does this encourage the developer to put in the fun destroying aspects, but in a MMO you get a fragmented player base due to veterans not wanting to run older content with newly created characters (nothing less fun than progression raiding in a dungeon with newblets for an hour when your team of guildies can clear it in 15min), and you get extra stress on the servers to the point where endgame raiding can become laggy to unplayable at times.

The thing that's crazy is that PvZ was a remarkable success by any measure. PvZ 2 would have commanded a premium price for a casual game. With a traditional model it would have been a spectacular success.

Perhaps they've done the math and determined that F2P will bring more money. You can't blame them for going that route.

What's lacking right now is a solid education for the game-buying public. F2P games make money because gamers aren't familiar with the strategies being employed to manipulate them to purchase. These strategies remove well-balanced, well-paced, and fair play, and exchange them for player frustration.

Incoming-producing F2P games aren't any of those things, ever.

What I would dearly love to see (but never will) is acceptance criteria for the app stores that states that if a device has in-app purchases turned off, apps are *not allowed to display* dialogs with requesting that the user purchase something.

If Ars is going to run positive articles about F2P, they owe it to their readers to balance that with an article describing in detail the hidden and dishonest strategies employed by F2P games to frustrate and manipulate players into executing in-app purchases.

The real key to the game's appeal is that there's no one dominant strategy; there's no single plant or set of plants that can just work in every situation.

That's refreshing. I have basically one plan of attack for every single level of PvZ. Even adapting for the pool and rooftop equates to very minor variations, sometimes just a matter of altering the timing of plants rather than different plants.

The real key to the game's appeal is that there's no one dominant strategy; there's no single plant or set of plants that can just work in every situation.

That's refreshing. I have basically one plan of attack for every single level of PvZ. Even adapting for the pool and rooftop equates to very minor variations, sometimes just a matter of altering the timing of plants rather than different plants.

Good to see NOMS right there in The Ugly, because NOMS!

Some of the plants were just plain useless in PvZ too, like the purple chompers that took way way way too long to chew their food so they weren't even useful as a secondary defense.

I have earned all of the stars in the first world and played through the normal game on the other 2.

I did not have to spend any money.

Yes your favorite plants from the game cost money, but you do not need to buy them. They are a clutch from discovering the new plants, figuring how plant food works, and developing new strategies.

There are counterpart upgrades to every upgrade that cost money. So it is not necessary to buy the upgrades. The purchased upgrades though do give an additional boost, but not much more than what is already available.

I apparently have OCD, so I don't mind grinding, but keys do come out regularly when after you beat the initial play through and challenges on stars appear on previous stages. Keys are unique to the world and do not work on other worlds.

From the article, a correction, the touch power ups only require in-game coins and do not cost real world money except if you were to purchase said coins instead of earning them in game.

I do regret needing the touch power ups in certain western mini-game stages such as the last rescue mission.

Edit: I do plan on purchasing my 2 favorite plants out of respect for the developers and my OCD tendencies may make me buy more.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 shows that it's possible to strike the right balance between monetization and difficulty.

This is absolutely not true. One of the things you didn't even mention in the review is the absurd real money price of everything. The best older plants, which are mostly required to get in anywhere in the infinite ladders, cost 3 or 4 USD. A piece. Theres 5 of them. That's absolutely absurd.

And that's just the plants you need! For other upgrades, like one extra plant slot? $4 please. Reclaim more sun on digging up plants? Ching, $4 Start with extra sun? $4.

There's no way to earn your way to any of these. You can get some upgrades through play, but not all of them, and none of the paid for plants can be earned.

The insane prices of every little unit just screams EA greed. Many people would be happy to pay $15 or even $20 for the whole set because it's so good. As it stands $20 doesn't get you even close to half, and you can't just pay for a couple things and earn the rest. It's absurd, it's greedy, and I'll just be using a tool to unlock everything just to spite EA. And I bought PvZ on multiple platforms.

Also you didn't mention there's a very obnoxious interstitial full screen that just begs for money occasionally. TOUCH HERE TO BUY STUFF. PLEASE. The initial tutorial directly leads you into the store and says flat out 'here, buy things'.

PopCap

I guess my response to this would be that I did not miss the plants/upgrades that you need to pay for, as there were plenty more that I could and did unlock just through play. I did not find it was "required" even for the late game content, either.

If you think they are charging too much for some of the stuff, just don't pay it. That's what I did, and considering the amount of stuff/gameplay I got for $0, I can't say I was disappointed.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 shows that it's possible to strike the right balance between monetization and difficulty.

This is absolutely not true. One of the things you didn't even mention in the review is the absurd real money price of everything. The best older plants, which are mostly required to get in anywhere in the infinite ladders, cost 3 or 4 USD. A piece. Theres 5 of them. That's absolutely absurd.

And that's just the plants you need! For other upgrades, like one extra plant slot? $4 please. Reclaim more sun on digging up plants? Ching, $4 Start with extra sun? $4.

There's no way to earn your way to any of these. You can get some upgrades through play, but not all of them, and none of the paid for plants can be earned.

The insane prices of every little unit just screams EA greed. Many people would be happy to pay $15 or even $20 for the whole set because it's so good. As it stands $20 doesn't get you even close to half, and you can't just pay for a couple things and earn the rest. It's absurd, it's greedy, and I'll just be using a tool to unlock everything just to spite EA. And I bought PvZ on multiple platforms.

Also you didn't mention there's a very obnoxious interstitial full screen that just begs for money occasionally. TOUCH HERE TO BUY STUFF. PLEASE. The initial tutorial directly leads you into the store and says flat out 'here, buy things'.

PopCap

You just argued for the Article. The developer gets more money from those that want it all. Meanwhile the cheapos that want to play for free and like the challenge of beating a game without parting any $ can and spread the word.

I'm sort of enjoying the game. I'm afraid I'm not good enough to not need to spend coins on the super abilities (the pinch move is horrible on an iphone, in my experience... maybe it's just my finger size) on some of the two star levels in Egypt... I'm still not to the pirate world.

I'll probably leave it on my phone.

I'll kind of agree that EA has a better idea of how to do F2P these days. I've been "playing" The Simpsons Tapped Out since launch and haven't spent a single dollar on the game. I admit, though, it's to be "one of those" who acts as a burden and expense.

If I ever want to see the Pirate level (and beyond) I'm probably going to have to grind horribly long hours to get enough coins to be able to buy the supers or plant food to get stars.

semi-related:I read an article through Gamasutra about F2P psychology... simply offering "would you like to buy <X>" from a button on screen increases the likelihood that someone will spend money on the game. So there is a deliberate reason that hitting the Plant Food button will say "you don't have enough coins, want to buy some".

Loved the first PvZ so no harm in playing this one for free, but I refuse to pay a cent since EA/Apple made a deal to be exclusive to IOS for x amount of time. Really rather play this on a PC/Xbox, not my iPhone.

I know of three games doing it right: League of Legends, Dota2 and Guild Wars 2. The first two have purely cosmetic stuff you pay for.

GW2 has a bit of everything, but you are not required to spend actual money to get it. For example, I gathered some gold through auctioning off stuff and bought gems, which I used to pay for extra character slots. Gems only exist because players who paid for them with real money are selling them (to get gold). It's a peculiar economy, and it's working pretty well.

Eventually, I suspect there will be a PC boxed version that has everything in it for one price, say $19.99 or $24.99 Personally I'd rather go that route than grind with a F2P, even if it's the same money, just so they don't harass me all the time to buy stuff. I had a lot of fun with the first one; it's worth $20 if it's the same amount of game play.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 shows that it's possible to strike the right balance between monetization and difficulty.

This is absolutely not true. One of the things you didn't even mention in the review is the absurd real money price of everything. The best older plants, which are mostly required to get in anywhere in the infinite ladders, cost 3 or 4 USD. A piece. Theres 5 of them. That's absolutely absurd.

And that's just the plants you need! For other upgrades, like one extra plant slot? $4 please. Reclaim more sun on digging up plants? Ching, $4 Start with extra sun? $4.

There's no way to earn your way to any of these. You can get some upgrades through play, but not all of them, and none of the paid for plants can be earned.

The insane prices of every little unit just screams EA greed. Many people would be happy to pay $15 or even $20 for the whole set because it's so good. As it stands $20 doesn't get you even close to half, and you can't just pay for a couple things and earn the rest. It's absurd, it's greedy, and I'll just be using a tool to unlock everything just to spite EA. And I bought PvZ on multiple platforms.

Also you didn't mention there's a very obnoxious interstitial full screen that just begs for money occasionally. TOUCH HERE TO BUY STUFF. PLEASE. The initial tutorial directly leads you into the store and says flat out 'here, buy things'.

PopCap

Jesus. I was pissed this wasn't out on Android until I read this. They can keep it.

It was okay for a while but then I had to start grinding just to get anywhere. I'm not going to grind away for hours or spend money to avoid the grinding. App deleted. Too bad. I loved the first one so much!

The real key to the game's appeal is that there's no one dominant strategy; there's no single plant or set of plants that can just work in every situation.

That's refreshing. I have basically one plan of attack for every single level of PvZ. Even adapting for the pool and rooftop equates to very minor variations, sometimes just a matter of altering the timing of plants rather than different plants.

Good to see NOMS right there in The Ugly, because NOMS!

Some of the plants were just plain useless in PvZ too, like the purple chompers that took way way way too long to chew their food so they weren't even useful as a secondary defense.

Most of the plants are unnecessary, but I don't think any of them are actually useless. Chompers + Jackos make for fun, goofy play. Different strokes, I guess.

So the proper way to implement F2P is make it so you never have to pay at all? That's nice, but I have to wonder if it is going to put food on the table.

Yes, that's exactly the right way to do it. You make your money either through advertising (ie: no RMT), or you make your money on players who value their time more than a few extra stops at Starbucks (or insert vice of your choice here).

F2P done wrong is artificially limiting the free game so that players are forced to pay if they want to actually get anywhere in the game. At least be honest and call it a trial/demo version.

If a player has the time/skill necessary to work their way through the game without paying a cent, then that should be their prerogative. You, as the game developer, either need to stop releasing F2P games or you need to find other ways monetization than forcing people into your RMT shop. If you're going to jump in the F2P waters, you have to accept that at least some percentage of your player base is going to go through the whole game without paying anything. If that's not acceptable to you the answer is not to force players into the RMT store, but to just release the game for pay up front and forget about microtransactions.

That's not really true, though. You don't HAVE to pay for anything to "beat" the game, but if you want to unlock all the plants then you do have to pay. You cannot unlock the paid plants any other way other than coughing up $3+ each.

You might not be able to unlock legacy plants without paying, but those plants are also not required to beat the game. You might have to grind to earn enough stars to move on to the next world/time period, but you don't have to pay money in order to do that, either.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 shows that it's possible to strike the right balance between monetization and difficulty.

This is absolutely not true. One of the things you didn't even mention in the review is the absurd real money price of everything. The best older plants, which are mostly required to get in anywhere in the infinite ladders, cost 3 or 4 USD. A piece. Theres 5 of them. That's absolutely absurd.

And that's just the plants you need! For other upgrades, like one extra plant slot? $4 please. Reclaim more sun on digging up plants? Ching, $4 Start with extra sun? $4.

There's no way to earn your way to any of these. You can get some upgrades through play, but not all of them, and none of the paid for plants can be earned.

The insane prices of every little unit just screams EA greed. Many people would be happy to pay $15 or even $20 for the whole set because it's so good. As it stands $20 doesn't get you even close to half, and you can't just pay for a couple things and earn the rest. It's absurd, it's greedy, and I'll just be using a tool to unlock everything just to spite EA. And I bought PvZ on multiple platforms.

Also you didn't mention there's a very obnoxious interstitial full screen that just begs for money occasionally. TOUCH HERE TO BUY STUFF. PLEASE. The initial tutorial directly leads you into the store and says flat out 'here, buy things'.

PopCap

I guess my response to this would be that I did not miss the plants/upgrades that you need to pay for, as there were plenty more that I could and did unlock just through play. I did not find it was "required" even for the late game content, either.

If you think they are charging too much for some of the stuff, just don't pay it. That's what I did, and considering the amount of stuff/gameplay I got for $0, I can't say I was disappointed.

That's a fine attitude as a gamer.

But as a reviewer it's 100% wrong. You haven't reviewed the full game, have you? If the upgrades are overpriced, that's:1. important information2. essential 'day 1 DLC' that clearly EA expects to sell to many customers, because this is F2P.

What good is a review that only covers one part of the experience? You didn't mention the paid stuff at all.